A Mid-Season's Day: Haiku

A cold, austere morn.
Petal, spent, on polished floor.
Birds. Of a sometime.

Ati What You Don't Know About M-PESA!

An article published at the CGAP website (click here to read) appears to want to credit the success of Safaricom's M-Pesa entirely to the ingenuity of a consulting group based in the UK, and almost none to the role that Safaricom played, and clearly none to the communicative habits and inclinations of millions ordinary Kenyans who have made M-Pesa a household label worldwide, and potentially a global brand.

I have posted a comment at the CGAP website which reads as follows:

Your saying that "Safaricom was not heavily involved in the [M-pesa]pilot" -- when, clearly, the pilot would never have been possible without Safaricom's network [of technology and people (ordinary Kenyans)] -- reminds me of a Tweet some 2-3 months ago which claimed that M-pesa's success was (solely?) thanks to a grant of some 2 million British Pounds from DFID. How many DFID grants have gone down the drain?

That particular grant would have had no effect were Safaricom not already succeeding on the ground with its mobile phone service. And Safaricom would not have been succeeding already were it not for millions of Kenyans who took to it as the answer to the technical and bureaucratic tyranny of the then fixed-line, monopoly operator.

To me, the most important passage in the above narrative is this:"Furthermore, the design of the application interface and entire system underwent several iterations. It began as a tool for the repayment of MFI loans. It was launched as a P2P transfer service. Such changes were made because the pilot team did their research, and closely monitored usage patterns. Their findings in the field were then fed back into the design of the application." That passage underscores the rather obvious fact that the M-pesa service as rolled out reflects ordinary ("unbanked") Kenyans' expressed preferences in the use of mobile telephony -- not to pay debts but to meet social capital obligations and other reciprocal duties and responsibilities.

Ordinary Kenyans were an integral partner in the initial success of M-pesa, and cotinue to power its growth. Some credit to them, please.

I invite any and all comments from you

Fossil Tower: Haiku

A jostling for Mau.
Pipes punched dry! Failed rains ragga.
Faint water war-drums.






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Note: First and last lines swapped July 16, 2009.

Soulmate: Haiku

I will share with you
Sorrows you have borne alone,
For they are mine now.

Grading Obama's Speech in Accra, Ghana, July 11, 2009

The AidWatch outfit at New York University has graded the speech Obama made in Ghana's Parliament last Saturday. Click here to see the grading.

I posted the following response to the grading exercise:

I was expecting to see a grade for this passage, which was part of Obama's speech: "Africa doesn't need strongmen, it needs strong institutions."

I would have given that passage an A for proper proritizing and focus, but with a cautionary note: The first thing strongmen do when they come to power(and too often even prior to formally assuming office)is to infest and take control of key institutions -- Judiciary, The Treasury and Central Bank, Armed Forces, Police, Education Media (TV, Radio, key newspaper houses) and even the "Church" -- with their cronies (usually co-ethnics, if not relatives)and like-minded self-aggrandizers and looters. Thus, there is dim hope for sustainable equity, justice and transparent governance in our institutions before the strongmen are themselves put out of action.

That is why, in the Kenyan case, the Waki Envelope, now in the hands of Luis Moreno-Ocampo at the Hague, has such great potential as a game-changer and catalyst for strong institutions.

As I see it, from Gandhi Wing, that was perhaps the most important passage for those genuinely concerned about establishing broad-based and lasting democratic space in Africa.

Let me add this now: The passage in Obama's speech not consistently (and perhaps least) borne out by either historical or contemporary evidence -- though it might ring true to the immediate ear and in theory should be true -- was: "Governments that respect the will of their own people are more prosperous, more stable, and more successful than governments that do not." Saudi Arabia isn't a democracy, but is more prosperous and appears more stable than most countries today, thanks to the "Oil Weapon". So are the Emirates. So is Libya. South Africa was very prosperous (though one-sidedly so) during the apartheid era. And Russia and China are getting quite there.

And lest we forget, we're not interested in governments getting prosperous -- an aberration which led M. Djilas decades ago to talk of a "New Class" in Soviet Russia. It's the people's prosperity we're interested in.

PS: For the full text of Obama's speech click here